Big Ben' s Bike Blog

Day 20; back home Today 115 km home, crossing 4 major rivers. The recent flooding in Belgium and Germany made the water level very high for this time of the year. Normally we would have used little ferries, some of them were out of service now due to the high water. We had only one ferry, after 20 km over the river Maas. On board 2 huge tractors with grass cutters to be taken across. The ferry had major problems having these two vehicles on board, the skipper started manoeuvring them in a favourable position and at one point the deck of the ferry subsided with a serious amount of water. A Belgium car driver was so scared by this that he reversed his car in and swiftly drove off the ferry to take a bridge further down. We trusted the skipper and safely arrived at the other side of the river.  We had coffee and cake at a trout farm and crossed the last 3 rivers by bridge. The day was uneventful but pleasant with a good average speed of 25.3 km with a slight headwind. For a moment we ...

  Day 19; cycling from Belgium to Holland Today was the best breakfast so far, amazing place this NH hotel. It was a National Holiday in Belgium and the papers were speculating whether or not the King was in a divorce because his wife was not at the ceremony. I think she was bored stiff with ceremonies, I wouldn’t go either if I was spouse to the King. Leaving a big city is not the best part of a cycling trip, after 15 km we were once again on a towpath that led us out of Antwerpen. We crossed the border at 40 km and had a light lunch just over the border in Holland. Today was a short etappe and we decided to push on to ‘s Hertogenbosch at 100km. Ben was moaning because the wind was in front again, Esther told him to shut up and stop talking about the wind on a beautiful day. Front wind is now described as the weather condition that shall not be named. ‘s Hertogenbosch was set on the agenda because it has the only serieus  Cathedral in the Netherlands. We looked at it and...

  Day 11; Mousse au Bloc de Frein  75 km Chartres 09.00 with some drizzle. Within a few miles we were outside town heading for Versailles. In Rambouillet the drizzle changed to more serious rain and we took refuge in a restaurant. On the table next to us were other refugees, a German family who were on their way to the Atlantic coast. These cyclists looked so smart and clean that the rest of the day we were discussing how on earth they managed to look like that in these conditions. After our usual caffe creme we decided to get going, the beauty contest was already lost to these Germans and we’ d better show them what a real cyclist was up to. By now the rain was pouring from the sky. Before Versailles there were two short climbs and descents; Ben had more and more trouble using the brakes in the rain. When we arrived in Versailles there was no braking left and inspection at the hotel learned that the shimano brake pads had completely disappeared and changed into a substanc...

Tandemride in times of Corona around the North of Holland   Before Corona the plan was to ride to Paris and back on our 25 year old Vittorio tandem. But when the Corona crisis got more and more serious it became obvious that cycling through France and Belgium was no longer possible. The good news was that just before Ascension Day the Dutch rules on the lock down became less strict. It looked like a 4 day cycling tour of our own country was possible; it was allowed to stay and eat in hotels and on the way there would be many chances to get take away food and coffee.   The North of Holland had been on our list for a long time, but the closer to home the less you feel an urge to work on this part of your bucket list. The first destination was Bourtange, a fortified village in the far North East of the Netherlands. The second target was to visit the medieval towns in Friesland, all famous of the Eleven Cities Iceskating Marathon which is organised only in very cold winters. The l...